User:FrJohn

This is a picture of me from a few years ago. My beard is a little fuller now.

I am the founding Sysop of OrthodoxWiki.org. You can contact me by leaving a message on my discussion page, or clicking the E-mail this user link in the "toolbox" on the sidebar. I can also be reached directly by email at info at OrthodoxWiki dot org.

A Few Quotes

"Repentance is the daughter of hope and the renunciation of despair." - The Ladder 5:1

"Orthodoxy is summoned to witness. Now more than ever the Christian West stands before divergent prospects, a living question addressed also to the Orthodox world… The ‘old polemical theology’ has long ago lost its inner connection with any reality. Such theology was an academic discipline, and was always elaborated according to the same western ‘textbooks.’ A historiosophical exegesis of the western religious tragedy must become the new ‘polemical theology.’ But this tragedy must be reendured and relived, precisely as one’s own, and its potential catharsis must be demonstrated in the fullness of the experience of the Church and patristic tradition. In this newly sought Orthodox synthesis, the centuries-old experience of the Catholic West must be studied and diagnosed by Orthodox theology with greater care and sympathy than has been the case up to now… The Orthodox theologian must also offer his own testimony to this world — a testimony arising from the inner memory of the Church — and resolve the question with his historical findings." - Georges Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology II, pp. 302-304

"Thus, a vision of the whole gradually grew for me that was nourished by the various experiences and realizations I had encountered along my theological path. I rejoiced to be able to say something of my own, something new and yet completely within the faith of the Church. The feeling of aquiring a theological vision that was ever more clearly my own was the most wonderful experience of those years." - Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Milestones, p. 150 (quote slightly revised).